1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to stretchers for conveying patients, particularly under adverse conditions in which adequate restraint and protection of a patient must be combined.
2. Review of the Art
Various proposals have been made for stretchers in which patients can be conveyed out of difficult locations, during which the patient must be held immobile regardless of the attitude of the stretcher so as to avoid aggravating existing injuries. A problem in designing such stretchers is to provide effective restraints which can nevertheless be readily and quickly applied and removed even under very adverse conditions.
Typical examples of known stretchers of this type are disclosed in (Boardman) U.S. Pat. No. 1,270,107, (Ferguson) U.S. Pat. No. 2,788,530 and (Fletcher) U.S. Pat. No. 3,158,875, and in my own U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,426,367; 3,601,824 and 3,886,606. Such stretchers typically provide some form of frame or cage (in the case of the Fletcher patent merely longitudinal strut), supporting a canvas or similar sheet on or within which the patient is immobilised by a more or less complex system of straps and flaps which will often need to be applied and possibly released in circumstances under which correct handling of a complicated array of straps and buckles will be slow and difficult, even after extensive training.
Proposals have been made for patient restraint devices in which interengaging hooked pile fabric are utilized to facilitate application of the restraint to a patient. Examples are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,361,132 (Rentsch), 3,469,268 (Phillips) and 4,034,748 (Winner). The Rentsch device is in effect a straightjacket using hooked pile fastenings of the jacket and its shoulder straps. The other two patent show rigid fracture boards to which the head and torso of a patient is secured by means of straps using hooked pile fabric fasteners. Whilst undoubtedly easier to apply than conventional belt and buckle type straps, the interengaging areas of hooked pile fabric must be correctly aligned with one another, and misalignment will prejudice the security of the fastenings obtained, which are dependent upon a sufficient area of interengagement of patches of hooked pile fabric.